Fire and Ice
by The Petulant Purple Princess
Summary: Fire Lord Zuko and his friends are taking a walk around his palace when a messenger hawk arrives with a mysterious letter, and something a little more horrifying: fan fiction.


**Disclaimer: This is not directed at any particular person or group of people. This is just a little scene that managed to plant itself in my head. If you find this story offensive in any way, you're probably taking it too seriously. Might wanna get that looked at.  
**

**May or may not continue. I don't know. Depends on what I feel like. Also, I had way too much fun writing parts of this.  
**

It was a pleasant day at the Fire Lord's palace. The turtle-ducks were playing happily in the pond in the courtyard, the trees were lush with greenery, and for once, everything was going smoothly. No one was fighting, and the nations were getting along quite well, considering they had just reached the end of a war that had lasted one hundred years. It was such a nice day that the new Fire Lord Zuko decided to enjoy a nice walk around the palace with his girlfriend Mai and his friends: the Avatar Aang, Katara and Sokka of the Southern Water Tribe, Suki the Kyoshi warrior, and Toph Bei Fong of the Earth Kingdom, who had all decided to gather at the palace for generic reason. Together they were called Team Avatar, mostly by Sokka. Only one person was missing from the group and that was Iroh, who was busy with his tea shop.

As midday approached, a loud, ominous growl sounded, shaking the very foundations of the palace. The chatter immediately stopped and the turtle-ducks fled to the safety of their pond. Mo Mo squealed and took refuge behind Aang's leg. Blinking, Toph turned in Sokka's general direction. "What," she asked, "was _that_?"

"Um." Sokka gripped his belly and gave everyone a sheepish grin. "There's a possibility that I might be a little bit hungry."

"Well then," Zuko said. "I guess we'd better go get lunch."

"Hopefully there's enough to satisfy the beast," Mai murmured, earning a few giggles and a loud guffaw from Toph for her trouble.

Deciding it was far too nice a day to spend indoors, the group collected as much food as they could carry from the kitchens and brought it all back to the courtyard for a picnic. While the girls set up a blanket (with the exception of Toph, who had no problem eating on the ground), the guys (and Toph) stood out of the way and tried to keep Sokka away from the food so everyone else had a chance at it.

Fortunately, it didn't take long for the girls to spread the blanket, and everyone was eating peacefully. No one noticed the shrill cry of a messenger hawk, until it had landed amongst them. They all stared at it (except for Toph) as if they'd never seen one before. And they hadn't, at least, not one like this. The bird was clearly very old; its feathers were so faded they looked more gray than red, and some of them were even falling out.

"Seriously!?" Zuko snarled, at the exact same time as Katara squealed and grabbed the hawk and pulled it into her lap.

"You poor thing!" she cooed, ignoring everyone staring at her, stunned. The hawk patiently put up with Katara's cuddling, twisting to prevent its message from being squashed. "You're too old to be flying!"

Aang leaned over and carefully removed the message tube from the hawk's leg. "It's for Zuko," the avatar read, and tossed the message at his friend.

Completely unsurprised, Zuko caught it easily. He read the address before opening it, and his eyes widened slightly. "It's for all of us, actually," Zuko said. He pulled the message from the tube, revealing it to be a rather thick sheaf of papers.

"Oooh, what is it?" Toph demanded, her face stretched in a wide toothy grin.

"Gimme a second!" Zuko pulled the top sheet off the stack and scanned over it quickly, while Mai grabbed the rest. She looked through them just as quickly as Zuko. An eyebrow raised, and then she smirked.

"Well, this oughta be interesting," she muttered. Zuko eyed her with trepidation. Mai's idea of 'interesting' tended to either be violent, or cause someone else pain or humiliation. Or, even worse, doing certain _things_ to him, but he trusted Mai to have discretion in front of his friends. He cleared his throat and started reading:

"_Dear Team Avatar (or Gaang—_

"'Gaang'? Who came up with that?" Zuko wondered, sneering.

"Gaang," Sokka repeated, a silly grin on his face. "Why didn't I think of that!"

Zuko blinked. He should have seen that coming. "Anyway," he continued.

"_Or Gaang, if you prefer, but I personally think it's kind of a lame pun, but whatever._

"_You probably don't know me. In fact, I'd be really surprised if you did know me, but that's beyond the point. The point is, I've found something I think you all might be interested in. Especially Zuko and Katara."_

Mai interrupted with a short snort of laughter. Zuko stared at her with narrow eyes. "Oh, don't pay any attention to me," she said airily. "Get on back to your reading."

"Riiight. _So, enjoy, and I hope you get as big a laugh out of it as I did! Sincerely, Triple P._"

"Who's Triple P?" Toph wondered. "Is that someone else you guys met before you met me?"

"No," Aang said. "I don't know who Triple P is."

"Me either," Zuko said. "Mai, can I see the rest of it?"

"If you insist." Mai smirked, and handed over the rest of the papers. Zuko read the first couple of lines, then blinked, his eyebrows drawing a line. He put the papers down and opened his mouth as if to say something, then shook his head.

"I don't even have words for how awful this is," he said finally.

"Oh, Zuko, it's not that bad," Mai said in a soothing tone, but with a mischievous smirk. "It gets much worse."

"What is it?" Aang asked.

"It's a story," Mai answered. "About us. Mostly Zuko and Katara," she added, "but the rest of us are in it too."

"Neat!" Toph cried. "I like stories. Read it to us!"

"No," Zuko said firmly. "No one should have to endure listening to this, much less have to read it."

"Fine," Toph said. "I'll just read it myself." Without thinking, Zuko shrugged and reached over to hand the papers to Toph, then paused. There was a momentary silence, then Mai snorted with laughter. Toph grinned. "That never gets old," she giggled. "But seriously, I wanna hear the story."

With the obligatory blind joke out of the way, the others started clamoring for Zuko to read it too. "It can't be that bad," Aang insisted. "At least just the first page?"

"But it is that bad," Zuko repeated, his eye starting to develop on odd little twitch. "I'm not reading it."

"Kill-joy." Mai pried the papers from his grip, which, judging from the heat of his hand, were probably about to burst into flame. The heat immediately fell when Mai touched him; as irritated by the story as he was, Zuko didn't want to burn Mai. "Since Fire Lord Zuko is _clearly_ too much of a wuss to read one little story, I'll do it."

Zuko growled, but immediately stopped when he noticed the knife twirling idly in Mai's free hand. While he trusted that his girlfriend wouldn't actually _use_ it on him, it was always best to err on the side of caution concerning Mai and pointy objects. He cleared his throat and gestured that she could go ahead and start.

"_Fire and Ice_," Mai read, in a high-pitched voice reminiscent of Ty Lee that surprised everyone present, especially Zuko. "_By Zutarlurver96. Athors not: this is my amazing zutara fanfic. BTW the titel comes from Within tempatashun's song Fire and Ice. there an awsom band you shood totes lissen to dem. Anywayz, R&R pleez!"_

In the pause between paragraphs, Mai looked up at her audience. Zuko's eye was twitching worse than before, Toph had a highly disturbed look on her face, Aang and Katara just looked confused, while Suki and Sokka looked about ready to burst from laughing. Mai smirked. "Yes?" she prompted.

"I don't think I wanna hear this story anymore," Toph whispered, drawing her legs closer to her body. "It's tainted."

"Don't be silly!" Sokka exclaimed through a snort of laughter. "How can a story be tainted? I personally think it's funny."

"No it's not," Toph snapped. "Did you _hear_ how many words were misspelled? I don't even know how I know that," she added, a thoughtful look on her face. "Can other people hear misspelled words?"

"I think it's just you," Mai said. "Can I continue?"

"I just want to know what 'zutara' means," Katara grumbled.

"And what a tempatashun is," Aang added.

"Tempatashun is supposed to be temptation," Toph said. "Whatever 'within temptation' even means."

"So what's zutara?" Suki wondered.

"You'll find out," Mai said. "Can I go on now?"

"Sorry," they all chorused, and Mai turned back to the story.

"_Chapter won._

"_Catara_," Toph flinched at the butchering of Katara's name, and Mai smirked. "_Catara wondereed team avitars camp at the western are tempel in a bored manner. theyre was nothin for her to do Aang and zuko were off somewhere practicing fiyerbending and sokka was off practising with his sord while the others were doing water itis they do when there no arownd_."

"'Water'?" Katara repeated. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"And where am I in this?" Toph demanded, her horror at all the misspellings and the fact that she could actually hear each misspelled word forgotten momentarily in her indignation.

"I think they mean 'whatever'," Mai said, squinting at the parchment and turning it at a different angle. "Yeah, that's pretty much the only thing that makes sense, in this context. And I think they forgot about you, Toph."

Toph crossed her arms and let her bangs fall over her eyes, pouting. "Not sure how anyone could forget Toph, really," Sokka commented around a mouthful of apple. "It's not like she's quiet or anything."

"Well, there's a strong chance that the author of this story is retarded," Mai said. "In fact, I think that's the only reasonable explanation." She cleared her throat, and continued with the story.

"_Every1 had already eight brekfist and she'd cleaned the dishes. She cold work on her waterbending but she was already pritty gud at that, sos he didnt bother. _

"_Suddenly she wandered how aangs training is going. her aktivitee for teh day desided she hedded over to were zuko and ang were practicing fyerbending. they were already pretty into it. Bot were shirtless and little flaymes poofed from there fists-"_

"'Poofed'!" Zuko cried. "I do not make fire 'poof'!"

"Hush." Mai whapped Zuko over the head with the bunch of papers, then, her Fire Lord subdued, returned to her reading.

"_Bot were shirtless and little flaymes poofed from there fists, zuko's fire being beigger of coarse, since he's been bending the longest. His hare was down, out of the ponytail he wore when she fist met him, which made his appearance softer, and, Katra thought, much cuter, sweat ran down his face and nek and chest leaving his skin glissening his powerfull musles bulging. He didn't notice her arrivel, which was good for katarea becuz it gave her a chanse to admier the banished prince._

"Oh, I do not like where this is going," Katara muttered, but Mai only grinned and kept reading.

"_katara had always thot Zuko was attractive, even since seh first met him, despite the fact he was trying to kill aang and despyte his scare. Befour, ther was know way it wood work owt but know that __Zuuko finale denownsed his dad for, gud she was wanderiing if she coold finally admit that maabee shje luffed him._"

Zuko and Katara both sputtered and Aang looked stricken. Suki and Sokka burst out laughing, and despite her dissatisfaction with the story Toph giggled a little along with them. "I do _not_-!" Katara protested, but Mai only laughed.

"Oh, don't worry Sweetness," Mai said, using one of Toph's nicknames for the Water Tribe girl. "I don't mind if you 'luff' Zuko. The story did get one thing right: Zuko is pretty hot. Not to mention his charming personality."

Zuko's face was getting redder by the second, but compared to the shade Katara's cheeks were turning, his face was the light pink of a sakura blossom. "Please stop talking," he squeaked, catching the look on Aang's face. He was immediately reminded of the wretched play put on by the Ember Island Players, and the idiotic romantic scene between his character and Katara's character while they were imprisoned together in Ba Sing Se. He also remembered how seriously the young Avatar had taken that scene, and how upset he was by it. Sure, Zuko hadn't been there for that conversation, but he wasn't stupid. First Aang had insisted on trading spots with him so he could sit next to Katara, then pouted when he didn't get his way until he was distracted by the play's inaccuracies. Then he stormed off when the fictional character said she thought of Aang like a brother, and during the intermission the two disappeared for a few minutes. When they came back, they refused to look at each other, and Aang found a new seat.

Yeah, Zuko figured something was up, but then he had no desire to get involved. Now, with the Avatar giving him that irritating pouty glare, and Mai sitting right beside him with that knife she was still twirling, he was feeling trapped.

"Not yet," Mai replied. "There's one more paragraph."

Zuko, Katara, and Aang groaned.

"_But then, Catar thout zuko wuz a prince. princes dont fal in lurv with peesant gurls. Espeshully iff the prince is off the fyre nashun and the pessant girl is from the water tribe. Zukko could nevar return her feelings. Teers stingin her eyes, Kataara turned adn went bak to teh campfyre, not notising Zuko's gorjus golden eyes watching her._

"_AN Well what did you think. Juss so u no, I luv luv luv Zuko! He's sor adorable n sexy! Please review! Pleeeease?_

"And that's the end of the first chapter."

"Chapter?" Zuko repeated, starting to feel faint. "There's more of this crap?"

"Apparently it's an epic," Mai said, shuffling through the rest of the papers. "The next one looks like it's from your point of view. Want to hear it?"

"No!" Zuko yelped. He snatched the packet from Mai's grasping fingers, and held it away from her, and the rest of the group. Suddenly, it burst into flame. He kept the fire going until it was nothing more than ash, then stood, brushing the dust off from his clothes. Everyone was staring at him with varying expressions of shock and surprise on their faces, except for Toph, who looked slightly confused, and Mai, who just looked amused.

"We will never speak of this again," Zuko said, as calmly as he could. Without waiting for a response, he turned and walked inside, his robes sweeping behind him.

"Guess the picnic's over," Mai said wryly.


End file.
